


Mutual Pining is Stupid

by MagpieWords



Series: AUgust 2020 - Magpiewords [7]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - High School, Best Friends, Comedy, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mutual Pining, Prom, sometimes you have a crush on your best friends brother and thats valid, they're all best friends - Freeform, they're all so smart and so stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25860940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieWords/pseuds/MagpieWords
Summary: "You’re my best friend. And he’s your brother and just saying that is weird."Best friends are good for being stupid together. Lup and Kravitz talk about prom.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz, Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz & Lup (The Adventure Zone), Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Series: AUgust 2020 - Magpiewords [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860265
Comments: 14
Kudos: 84
Collections: AUgust 2020





	Mutual Pining is Stupid

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was so fun to write, sorry it's almost a full week late! Shoutout to my sister for helping me come up with the idea that there should be more "Lup and Kravitz are best friends" content - I think this prompt turned into something really wonderful.

The first sound against her window was probably the breeze. The second could have been a bird. But three little rappings were intentional. Lup groaned, the idea of getting out of her nest of blankets felt impossible, but she was a woman of many impossibilities.

She opened the window only for a pebble to hit her square in the forehead. “What?” She shouted as quietly as she could for it to still be considered a shout. Looking down, there was no one standing in the front lawn, the standard location for all pebble-thrown-at-window cliche nonsense.

“Over here.” Oh, she was right the second time, it was a bird.

“What the fuck, Kravitz? I have a bio test tomorrow.” She pushed the window open further and sat on the ledge, putting her nearly at the same level as her neighbor, sitting on his roof.

Kravitz squinted at her. “So do I? I know you don’t go to bed before midnight.”

“I do when Tia takes my phone.”

“Ah,” he nodded, sagely. “That’s why you didn’t answer my texts.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Yes.”

Lup leaned further out the window. “Merle the summer before 8th grade emergency or Greg Grimaldis during the winter social last year?”

“Uh,” Kravitz bit his lip in that way Lup had only seen recently.

“Oh,” she cooed and Kravitz winced. “A love emergency. You came to the right lady.”

“This was dumb.”

“No, Krav, wait!” She called, and he stopped scooting towards his window. “But like, I am, tho.”

“You are,” he admitted. The silence that fell over them was comfortable, familiar in the way only best friends had. Not that Lup could be sure of that, she didn’t have a best friend before Kravitz. Taako didn’t count, he was her twin. A best friend had to willingly be your friend. Twins were bound for life, whether they liked it or not.

The cul-de-sac was a quiet one, but the street lights made it impossible to see any stars. Still a nice night, crickets chirping in the early summer warmth.

“Prom is in two weeks,” Kravitz attempted to start, but the rest of his words died in his throat.

“If Barry wanted you to find out if I’m interested, I already asked him to it, so crisis averted.” 

“No, actually he– wait, what?” He’d spend the last month helping Barry plan the perfect promposal. “When did that happen?” 

“This morning,” Lup said, like this wasn’t the biggest deal of the century.

Kravitz shook his phone at her, a question without words, and she shrugged. “I told you, Tia took my phone.”

“Unbelievable.” He quickly typed a very caps-lock heavy message to Barry before throwing his clearly useless phone through his window onto his bed.

“A congratulations would be nice.”

“How about a what the fuck!” Kravitz whisper-shouted across the narrow patch of lawn that divided their houses. “Did he tell you how long we spent planning?”

She nodded, like this was a deep philosophical question. “Yeah, he wasn’t going to go through with it.”

“But it was perfect.” Kravitz knew he was whining, but he really had planned the perfect promposal. Barry had composed a violin piece with him. He couldn’t say he was surprised, Barry was way too nervous for grand gestures like they had planned, but the idea had been something out of a fairytale. It was like every movie Kravitz had watched at every sleepover. It was nice. He wanted nice things for Lup.

Then again, actually dating the object of her affection for as long as they had known what affection was probably counted as a nice thing for Lup. And it was very nice for Kravitz not to hear about their mutual pining anymore.

“Then you use the plan,” Lup suggested, leaning forward again, always dangerously at the ledge of her window. Kravitz had forced himself to stop worrying about it after she actually fell and ended up cushioned by the bushes. The twins had a weird sort of luck. “On whoever your crush is.”

“Crushes are stupid. I’m not a child.”

“You’re seventeen.”

“That’s an adult in some states!” He protested, and Lup ignored him as she always did. They could be a hundred-and-three and Kravitz would permanently be the person she made shadow puppets with in blanket forts. Then again, adults could have blanket forts, right?

This was a problem for Lup to worry about when she got to college. There was a love emergency to deal with first. “So who’s the lucky gentleman that you’ll be taking to prom?”

For as long as she’d known him, Kravitz had been an open book to Lup. Which was fair, because she told him everything too. Kravitz knew before Taako did that Lup was a girl. He told her every fear, every impossible dream. Even the stupid ones, like that bird phase he had in 6th grade. They had text chains between the two of them that could be its own Burn Book. 

So watching him hesitate to tell her about a crush was weird. “Krav?” Whoever he was interested in, he’d confessed to worse before. He once admitted to a crush on their english teacher and Mr. Bradson was literally the most frustrating person Lup had ever met. This person couldn’t be that bad.

“Is it weird that you’re dating Barry now?”

The non-sequitur threw her for a moment. “You’re not interested in Barry.”

“Oh ew, no. He’s like my–” and Kravitz stopped short. But Lup could finish that sentence, he’d said it a thousand times. Kravitz had known Lup longer, but he spent more time with Barry. They were both only children, so when Taako and Lup were twinning, the two of them decided they could be brothers.

“Taako?”

“Who?” Kravitz was such a shit liar.

“Fuck!” Lup wasn’t whisper-shouting anymore, she was just shouting. One of the lights flickered on from the first floor of Kravitz’s house, but she didn’t care. “You want to ask Taako to prom?!”

“Lup,” Kravitz pleaded. “His room is right next to yours. Please–”

“I’ve watched that idiot sleep through a hurricane. And you want to date him?” How had she not known? Kravitz told her everything. She’d braided feathers into his hair when the thought that would turn him into a bird. He painted her nails. He knew about her crush on Barry! The four of them spent every lunch together, they didn’t go anywhere fun without the whole group. There’s no way she wouldn’t have noticed if her best friend was in love with her brother.

Unless…

“I was so busy with Barry, I didn’t even watch him charm you off your ass.”

Lup felt bad for shouting, Kravitz looked near tears. That didn’t stop him from rolling his eyes. “I don’t know if I’d call it that. I’ve watched you and him devour a calzone in a very uncharming matter.”

“It’s called skill,” she replied automatically. “Oh wait, did this happen the last time we went to Pizza Blaster?”

That’s where she fell for Barry all those years ago. They went to this shitty diner at least once a week, usually with other friends from school, but always the four of them. And Barry never ate pizza. He’d get a salad or sandwich or something equally stupid. But one random night in middle school, he was looking at her slice with such longing, that when he said “fuck it” and snatched it right off her plate, she didn’t even think about stabbing him with his own salad fork. She would stab anyone else who stole her food, including and especially her own brother. But she watched Barry eat that entire slice in one breath. He looked so happy, then she had to hold his hair back while he immediately threw it all up.

“Worth it,” his voice had been gravelly. He was disgusting. They were on their knees in the gross bathroom of a shitty diner. She’d got french fry grease stains on her favorite jeans. And Lup fell hopelessly in love.

When she told Kravitz, he laughed and told her it was about time. Apparently she’d been ‘pining’ since 4th grade, according to crappy romcom watcher Kravitz Queen. She couldn’t call bullshit, though, because if she thought about it for two seconds, Lup knew Kravitz was right. She just didn’t realize until that night on the bathroom floor.

Last week when they were at Pizza Blaster, Barry was sensibly eating a salad while she and Taako played a bastard version of ‘chubby bunny’ but with two halves of a calzone. It was horrific and amazing. 

“No.” Kravitz was so quiet that Lup barely heard him about the chirp of crickets. “Before that.”

“The bowling alley last month when he did that victory dance?” That had been funny and, if he wasn’t her brother, probably some sort of attractive. Kravitz used to pretend to be a bird, birds liked weird mating dances.

“No.”

“When he stole Greg’s wallet after I punched him?” He was already Lup’s favorite twin, but that had really sealed the deal.

“No– wait, you guys stole Greg’s wallet?”

“No, Taako stole his wallet and bought me a slushie with the cash.”

Kravitz looked like he was going to protest that, morally righteous fool that he was. His interest in Taako made even less sense. When Kravitz closed his mouth and the silence dragged on, Lup lost her patience.

“When, Kravitz?” She shouted again, and he flinched. Another light flickered on in the Queen household.

She could see his lips move in the dim streetlight, but couldn’t hear him. She cupped her ear and leaned further out the window. Kravitz took a deep breath, steading himself to confess again.

“Lucas’s party.”

On the whole, Lup had good balance. She only fell into the bushes that one time, and she had stolen some of her aunt’s wine that night, so in her opinion it shouldn’t count. Now, she gripped the edges of the windowsill so hard, her knuckles turned white as she pulled herself back from nearly tumbling over. She placed a foot solid on her bedroom floor.

“Lucas Miller’s party?”

Kravitz nodded, eyes screwed shut like if he couldn’t see Lup then maybe this conversation wasn’t happening.

“Lucas Miller’s birthday party when we were seven?” She was shouting again.

Kravitz turned away from her, but not out of shame. His attention was caught on a sound coming from his room. “Shit,” he whispered, scooting back to the window and disappearing from sight.

Lup shifted her weight entirely into her own room, but didn’t close the window again. She stood there, waiting, hearing snippets of conversation. “Her aunt took her phone–” and “Don’t you have a test to study for?” and “We’ll be quiet. Thanks, mom, love you.” then Kravitz was leaning out his window.

“She doesn’t like it when I’m on the roof.”

“Your mom is so cool.” She’d said that before, but it was worth saying again. If Lup’s aunt caught her shouting in the middle of the night, she’d be in more trouble than just losing her phone for the day. Luckily, Tia slept with headphones in, but evidently Mrs. Queen did not.

Kravitz nodded, but didn’t move his feet from his bedroom floor. “Are you mad?”

Lup sat on the windowsill, legs still dangling inside. “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know if you’re mad?”

She shrugged. Kravitz had a point, Lup was usually very aware of her own anger. And she had been shouting, but she still wasn’t sure this could be called anger. “I’m a little mad?”

“I won't tell him,” Kravitz offered. “I won’t ask him to prom if you don’t want me to.”

“What? That’s not why I’m mad.”

Kravitz flailed his hands about, a silent shout for clarification that he was prone to even when they weren’t whispering in the middle of the night.

“Of course you can date Taako,” Lup explained. “It’s not like you need my permission.”

“I kind of do? Like, I like Taako, I mean I really like him.” Even through the distance and the dim light, Lup could see a blush dust across Kravitz’ dark cheeks. “But you’re my best friend. And he’s your brother and just _saying_ that is weird, I can’t imagine how living in it would be.”

It had been weird, when he first said it, but the more he said it, the less weird it became. Kravitz and Taako were so different, on the surface. But she knew both of them, and the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. 

“I don’t even know if he likes me back,” Kravitz was speaking so softly now, Lup almost couldn’t hear him. “And I don’t ever want to do anything that would, I don’t know, hurt you or make you uncomfortable or–”

“You won't.” The words left her mouth without any thought, but that only made them feel more true. “Kravitz, you’re always going to be my best friend.”

Visibly, Kravitz relaxed. Lup felt unexplainable laughter bubble up in her.

“You dork, of course you’re always going to be my best friend. Is that why you didn’t tell me? You were scared?”

“I wasn’t scared!” Kravitz shouted, leaning so far out the window he was nearly on the roof again, before coming back to himself. “Fuck,” he whispered. “I wasn’t scared.”

“Then…?” She prompted. When Kravitz still didn’t say anything, she sighed. “Krav, you’ve had a crush on Taako for literally as long as you’ve known me. I don’t even know if we talked to each other during Lucas’s party! I only know we were both there because Tia teases Taako about it all the–”

Oh no.

Did everyone else notice this but her?

“Lup?” Kravitz asked when she’d been silent for too long.

Did everyone else notice this but her and Kravitz? At least best friends were good for being stupid together.

“Ask Taako to prom.”

Kravitz didn’t follow her conversation jump. “What?” 

“We’re all so stupid!” She bit back the shout with barely enough time to avoid waking Mrs. Queen again. “He likes you too, dumbass. I cannot believe we didn’t know.”

“He likes me?” The dumbstruck, hopeful look that took over Kravitz's face was almost nice enough to douse Lup's anger.


End file.
